INTRODUCTION
Research ethics is a rapidly growing area of scholarly concern in political science and international relations (IR). This trend is reflected in the expanding institutional and professional requirements for research ethics. With the well-being of all involved in the research process at the heart of research ethics (Guillemin and Gillam Reference Guillemin and Gillam2004), we are currently observing the profession embracing the ethics of care. Since its original articulations (Gilligan Reference Gilligan1982; Noddings Reference Noddings1984; Ruddick Reference Ruddick1989), ethics of care as a moral and political concept has centered on the prevention of harm and suffering of humans (Hankivsky Reference Hankivsky2014). It is a particular form of feminist ethics, which accounts for the subjugation of women, and seeks to rectify injustices and bring about change (Maeckelberghe Reference Maeckelberghe2004, 319). Feminist ethics of care embraces the qualities of care associated with women as caregivers in the private domain and transposes the benefits of this ethics of care to the public realm. Feminist ethics of care is underpinned by notions of interconnectedness, relationality, attentiveness, and responsibility toward others with whom one interacts (directly or indirectly), while rejecting essentialist constructions of women as being naturally predisposed to care by virtue of their maternal roles (FitzGerald Reference FitzGerald2022).
Political science and IR have been increasingly preoccupied with research ethics, defined as “the overarching set of moral values, virtues, principles, and standards, which should act as the guide for ‘good’ research practice” (Iphofen Reference Iphofen2020, 20). The profession’s recent interest in research ethics connects with the institutional turn in feminist ethics of care, which foregrounds the role of institutions in creating conditions for caring relationships (Tronto Reference Tronto2010). Using ethics of care as “a tool of assessment and method of inquiry” can reveal how institutional patterns of power shape unequal relations and perpetuate gender-based inequalities and discrimination (Greenswag Reference Greenswag2019, 917). Discovering these gendered patterns in the context of research relationships can help identify disparities in the practice of research ethics. These disparities also impact the production of knowledge on research ethics. Feminist ethics of care recognizes that “the gender-coded (feminine) tropes,” such as empathy, “can restructure cognitive activity for all” (Dalmiya Reference Dalmiya2016, 2)—an ambition that may be thwarted in practice.
Despite recent advancements in concern for ethics, little research to date has investigated emerging practices of reporting ethics, much less the potential inequalities in such reporting. This article leverages the feminist ethics of care to interrogate whether reporting of the ethical practices of research in political science and IR is gendered. The quality of being gendered takes the form of men’s and women’s differential participation in, and ways of, reporting research ethics in academic publications. In turn, a feminist ethics of care perspective can further our understanding of how gender-based disparities persist in the profession (Dion and Mitchell Reference Dion and Mitchell2019; Key and Sumner Reference Key and Sumner2019; Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017). Hence, we ask (1) who reports on the ethical practices of their research in political science and IR scholarship and (2) do men and women frame their ethical concerns differently?
This article systematically and empirically assesses the reporting of the ethical practices of research in political science and IR at a time when the profession is at a juncture. Reporting matters because it draws attention to research ethics, models good behavior for peer researchers and students (Israel Reference Israel2015), and is, itself, an ethical research practice. Reporting on the ethical practices of research enables transparent dissemination and evaluation of best practices when using established and emerging methods and data. It also enhances the legitimacy of research with broader communities, aligning with the social purpose of scholarly inquiry (Comstock Reference Comstock2012, 274–84).
However, currently, there is no universal or consistent requirement to report on any aspect of ethics when publishing research internationally. The American Political Science Association (APSA) has spearheaded the emerging ethics of care in the profession mandating its journals to require authors to report on research ethics procedures (APSA 2022), but other national political science and IR organizations outside North America are lagging far behind. Consequently, reporting of research ethics is down to journals’ and publishers’ guidelines, which are either absent or highly variable in terms of what detail of information on research ethics procedures is expected to be reported (see Section 2 of the Supplementary Material). These differences reflect divergent perspectives of professional bodies on research ethics in political science and IR across and within countries (Piccio Reference Piccio2016). We do not question that most researchers conduct research ethically, regardless of whether they report on ethics in published work. Nonetheless, the largely voluntary, uneven, and non-standardized nature of reporting leaves the door open to varying practices and inscription of inequalities, such as those based on gender.
We conduct empirical tests to analyze the reporting of ethical practices of research (which hereafter we refer to through the shorthand of reporting research ethics) in political science and IR journals. In this study, we take research ethics to concern ethical dilemmas and commitments arising from interactions with human participants directly and indirectly (i.e., drawing on archival, social media, and textual data) in qualitative and quantitative study of politics and IR.Footnote 1 We identify several gender-based differences. First, overall, women report ethics more than men, controlling for method, author number, and year of publication. Second, we find that men and women report different dimensions of ethics; by dimensions of ethics, we refer to reporting on formal ethics (e.g., IRB protocols), everyday ethics (ethical issues in daily practices of research), consent protocols, anonymity and confidentiality, risks, and benefits. Third, we also observe that these differences are even starker at the intersection of method and gender, whereby in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method articles, men and women report on different dimensions of ethics. These findings reveal the gendered nature of the emerging practice of research ethics reporting, with implications for how knowledge in political science and IR, and in the field of research ethics, is created and evaluated, as well as for women’s careers in the profession.
The article proceeds, first, by reviewing the ethics debate in the profession as a form of institutional ethics of care. We then relate the question of ethics reporting to the discussions of gender-based inequalities in political science and IR. We offer three hypotheses to examine possible gender-based inequalities in reporting of research ethics informed by the feminist ethics of care. Second, we review how we constructed the first dataset of the reporting versus non-reporting of research ethics. In this dataset, we identify who is reporting ethics in relation to all published articles. Third, we discuss the construction of the second dataset—the reporting of research ethics dataset—which offers a more nuanced appraisal of how women and men have reported ethics. Fourth, we discuss the implications of our findings for the emerging practice of ethics reporting and the risks of its institutionalization without addressing existing gender-based inequalities along with other intersectional disparities.
THE EMERGING ETHICS OF CARE IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AND IR
Political science and IR have long been conceived as an ethical laggard compared to other social sciences such as psychology and anthropology (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea Reference Yanow and Schwartz-Shea2008). Today, they are catching up by expanding discussions of research ethics, and joining other academic disciplines and non-academic professions in embracing an ethics of care. This development is significant in view of the moral imperative not to harm human participants when researching political science and IR (Fujii Reference Fujii2012; Wood Reference Wood2006). Ethical research is vital for ensuring its wider social legitimacy and desirability (Israel Reference Israel2015), but also for the feasibility of future research (Mackenzie, McDowell, and Pittaway Reference Mackenzie, McDowell and Pittaway2007). In turn, we see an emerging institutionalization of the ethics of care in political science and IR with attention paid to sets of broader responsibilities to, and relationships with, research participants, along with ethical commitments arising from new sources of data, for example, social media.
Qualitative researchers have broadened the discussion of research ethics beyond the fundamental ethical concerns of informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality. Ethical sensibilities and requirements now encompass multiple challenges of working in close proximity with research participants and in diverse research environments. Debates have raised the question of responsibility toward a wider circle of individuals—from fixers, research assistants, gatekeepers, to researchers themselves—who can be harmed, directly either by the process of data gathering or their processing and analysis (Loyle and Simoni Reference Loyle and Simoni2017; Rudloff and Vinson Reference Rudloff and Vinson2023). Attention has been focused on concerns for researcher preparedness (Cronin-Furman and Lake Reference Cronin-Furman and Lake2018), the challenging unpredictability of the research process (Kostovicova and Knott Reference Kostovicova and Knott2022), traumatization and emotional harms of research participants (especially survivors of violence, Pearlman Reference Pearlman2023), and potential researcher trauma and safety. As the Belmont Report (1978) highlights, ethical research is not only about minimizing risks and maximizing benefits but also about participants’ rights to autonomy, privacy, and dignity (Fujii Reference Fujii2017), as well as about gaining consent meaningfully and securing data (Campbell Reference Campbell2017). Finally, qualitative researchers have noted the ethical concerns that arise from moves toward requirements of data sharing (Krystalli Reference Krystalli, Ginty, Brett and Vogel2021), including the data access and research transparency (DA-RT) initiative (Jacobs et al. Reference Jacobs, Büthe, Arjona, Arriola, Bellin, Bennett and Bjӧrkman2021; Tripp Reference Tripp2018).
Quantitative researchers have increasingly been drawn to discussions of research ethics in all its complexity, especially since the “experimental turn” in political science (Michelson Reference Michelson2016; Teele Reference Teele2014). For example, scholars have debated the harms versus benefits of experiments including both the challenge of identifying and thus minimizing harms (McDermott and Hatemi Reference McDermott and Hatemi2020; Phillips Reference Phillips2021; Whitfield Reference Whitfield2019), how to deal with lacking consent (Desposato Reference Desposato2018; Humphreys Reference Humphreys2015), and the potential harms to communities that are often not a direct concern of IRBs (Johnson Reference Johnson2018). Scholars have also discussed the ethics of new quantitative methods that have dovetailed the technological developments, such as the digitization of old data, and the emergence and availability of new data, such as social media data (Moreno et al. Reference Moreno, Goniu, Moreno and Diekema2013). The complex balance between the public versus private nature of information has serious implications for the pillars of research ethics, namely the practices of anonymity and consent (Taylor and Pagliari Reference Taylor and Pagliari2018). New forms of data have revealed the inadequacy and “confusion” about existing ethical guidelines and rules, which are unable to keep up with the pace of technological developments (Salganik Reference Salganik2019; Witnov Reference Witnov2011). Even more traditional undertakings by quantitative scholars, previously considered “ethics-free,” have come under the spotlight, for example, regarding the ethics of untrasparent analysis (Hoover Green and Cohen Reference Hoover Green and Cohen2021). Hence, it is now recognized that dilemmas of ethical research practice of quantitative researchers can be as challenging as those of qualitative scholars (cf. Hopf Reference Hopf, Flick, von Kardoff and Steinke2004, 459).
The moral remits within which scholars have considered these ethical dilemmas implicitly engage with foundational notions of the feminist ethics of care, such as relationality, interdependence, and responsibility vis-à-vis all individuals involved in or impacted by research (Engster and Hamington Reference Engster and Hamington2015). We propose that explicitly centering the feminist ethics of care in the analysis of the ethics turn can reveal existing inequalities in current practices and pave the way for equitable institutionalization of research ethics in the profession.
Engendering Research Ethics in Political Science and IR: A Feminist Ethics of Care in the Profession?
Gendered patterns in knowledge production in political science and IR have been widely documented in nearly all aspects of the academic endeavor. Women are underrepresented in publishing in leading journals (Dion and Mitchell Reference Dion and Mitchell2019; Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017), books (Samuels and Teele Reference Samuels and Teele2021), citations counts (Maliniak, Powers, and Walter Reference Maliniak, Powers and Walter2013), and senior ranks of the profession and professional organizations (Alter et al. Reference Alter, Clipperton, Schraudenbach and Rozier2020; Monroe and Chiu Reference Monroe and Chiu2010).Footnote 2 The underrepresentation of women scholars also plays out in syllabi (Hardt et al. Reference Hardt, Kim, Smith and Meister2019; Phull, Ciflikli, and Meibauer Reference Phull, Ciflikli and Meibauer2019), while students also undercite work by women (Liu, Devine, and Gauder Reference Liu, Devine and Gauder2020). The practice of research ethics is a part of knowledge production in political science and IR, and is likely to reflect these gender-based differences with implications both for women researchers as creators of knowledge and the nature of the knowledge created.
Publication and citation gaps matter because they can privilege some substantive questions and methods over others (often quantitative methods in political science; see Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017). Women are socialized within these inequalities from the start of their academic journey, with women receiving less quantitative training than men while PhD students (Gatto et al. Reference Gatto, Gohdes, Traber and van der Velden2020). Gender gaps persist because they are reproduced through the “Matilda effect” where “women’s research is viewed as less important or their ideas are attributed to male scholars, even as a field becomes more diverse” (Dion and Mitchell Reference Dion and Mitchell2019, 312; see also Brown et al. Reference Brown, Horiuchi, Htun and Samuels2020; Key and Sumner Reference Key and Sumner2019). These gendered ways in how knowledge is produced and evaluated point to women’s “epistemic marginalization” and “epistemic discrimination” in the profession (Dalmiya and Alcoff Reference Dalmiya, Alcoff, Alcoff and Potter1993; Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Giladi and McMillan Reference Giladi and McMillan2022). We argue that emerging practices of ethics reporting are likely marked by inequalities not only in terms of who reports and what they report on, but also in terms of how such reporting is received.
A feminist ethics of care directs attention to identifying inequalities that adversely affect women compared to men. In the practice of care, this disparity manifests as women’s overrepresentation in caring roles and caring professions. This point has been noted both by scholars of feminist ethics of care and of prosocial behavior, interested in the study of behaviors beneficial to others, such as care (Diekman and Clark Reference Diekman, Clark, Schroeder and Graziano2015).Footnote 3 The prosocial behavior perspective further clarifies the differences in how men and women practice care: women are disproportionately involved in care, conceived in terms of relational commitments to the well-being of the marginalized and disempowered, in contrast to men whose help is conceived as a chivalrous response to those at risk (Diekman and Clark Reference Diekman, Clark, Schroeder and Graziano2015; Eagly Reference Eagly1987; Nielson, Padilla-Walker, and Holmes Reference Nielson, Padilla-Walker and Holmes2017). Gendered prosociality, which highlights women’s orientation to others as a feature of their communal behavior in contrast to men’s agentic behavior defined by assertiveness and self-focus (Farrell and Finkelstein Reference Farrell and Finkelstein2007; Kidder Reference Kidder2002),Footnote 4 is triggered by different mechanisms. Environments are one such mechanism “which encourage[s] specific traits or behaviors” (Diekman and Clark Reference Diekman, Clark, Schroeder and Graziano2015, 380).
With the ongoing institutionalization of research ethics in political science and IR, the profession is a type of environment with an expectation for all involved to care. Yet there can be subtle gender-based differences in enacting care as a form of prosocial behavior within the same workplace. Women engage more in relational workplace behavior than men, both vis-à-vis colleagues and vis-à-vis outsiders they interact with in their occupational roles, even though they discharge their roles equally in terms of providing expert advice (Eagly Reference Eagly2009, 648–9; Farrell and Finkelstein Reference Farrell and Finkelstein2007; Lovell et al. Reference Lovell, Kahn, Anton, Davidson, Dowling, Post and Mason1999). Furthermore, women will often voluntarily go beyond their required duties more than men and take on additional tasks and roles which aligns with a relational commitment to others (Kark and Waismel-Manor Reference Kark and Waismel-Manor2005). We expect to observe more women than men demonstrating ethical conduct of research through ethics reporting, and this effect to play out in mixed-gender co-authoring teams.
Hypothesis 1. Women authors are more likely to report ethics than men authors, with this effect greater the larger the proportion of women in mixed-gender co-authoring teams, holding constant research method (H1).
A feminist ethics of care perspective also requires us to interrogate whether and how research conducted by women scholars, which has been documented as different from men’s, contributes to women’s articulation of different ethical concerns. The articulation of feminist ethics of care stems from appreciating women’s “way of being” in the world, which, in turn, informs their moral standpoint (i.e., a caring standpoint) and their care practices (Gilligan Reference Gilligan1982; Noddings Reference Noddings1984; Ruddick Reference Ruddick1989). Hence, women’s view of research ethics will be directly related to the kind of research they conduct, for example, by topic or data collection. There is a wide gender disparity in different subfields, topics, and regions men and women study in political science and IR (De Haan Reference De Haan2020; Reid and Curry Reference Reid and Curry2019). For example, men scholars are about twice as likely to study “conflict” as “peace,” while women authors are slightly more likely to write about “peace” than “war” (Bright and Gledhill Reference Bright and Gledhill2018).
Likewise, women’s experience of fieldwork differs from men’s. Specific challenges experienced by a lone female researcher in a volatile research site will reflect in their considerations of research ethics (Krause Reference Krause2021). Women are more likely to face harassment—predominantly sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence—in the context of ethnographic research (Hanson Reference Hanson2019). But men “are also encouraged to endure physical and emotional violence associated with expectations of hegemonic masculinity” (Hanson Reference Hanson2019, 2). Following Gilligan (Reference Gilligan1982), women’s “different voice” can manifest in articulating different ethical concerns from men, including in their openness to discuss the emotional challenges of research (Shesterinina Reference Shesterinina2019). These insights raise the prospects of ethical challenges and dilemmas which women and men may approach and articulate differently, or prefer to avoid.
Hypothesis 2. Women authors are likely to report on different dimensions of ethics than men (e.g., formal ethics, everyday ethics, anonymity and confidentiality, consent protocols, risks and benefits), with these gendered dynamics also playing out in mixed-gender coauthoring teams (H2).
At the same time, scholars have warned against eliding differences among women and among men. While gender is a “privileged analytic,” scholars must also be attuned to multiple and intersecting axes of diversity (Raghuram Reference Raghuram, Mahmoudi, Brysk and Seaman2021). Beyond challenging the overarching notions of feminine versus masculine care as necessarily distinct and oppositional (Jordan Reference Jordan2019), the intersectional lens brings into the fold multiple identities and their role in structuring gendered practices in performing care (Hankivsky Reference Hankivsky2014; Tronto Reference Tronto2010). They are evidenced elsewhere in the academic profession. For example, women of color are more marginalized in senior academic and leading administrative posts than white women in relation to men. Moreover, women of color have not achieved gains in their representation compared to some improvement recorded for men of color (Silbert, Punty, and Ghoniem Reference Silbert, Punty and Ghoniem2022). Such intersections reveal new planes of domination and inequality, finely texturing our understanding of how care is gendered. Hence, the intersections of ascriptive and non-ascriptive identity axes—including ethnicity, race, seniority (vs. precarity), wealth, privilege, education, institutional prestige, methodology, and methodological training—might constitute complex hierarchies in which some women conceive of and practice the ethics of care differently from other women and men when conducting political science and IR research.
Hypothesis 3. There are likely differences between women in how they report dimensions of ethics, as well as between men (H3).
In testing this hypothesis, we follow existing literature that has demonstrated an intersection of gender and methodology to evaluate the effect of this intersection on the reporting of ethics. We also examine other intersections, namely authors’ seniority, and geography of an author’s home institution.
REPORTING VERSUS NON-REPORTING OF RESEARCH ETHICS
To test H1, we constructed the ethics reporting versus non-reporting dataset consisting of all articles published in nine prominent journals in political science and IR (2000–18).Footnote 5 We developed this dataset from Teele and Thelen (Reference Teele and Thelen2017), which contains data for 2000–15 for nine journals on methods and gender.Footnote 6 We extended this dataset to 2018 and added new codes to the extended dataset to capture which articles reported ethics and how.
Data and Methods
To identify articles reporting on ethics within these journals, we aimed to locate those that explicitly reported ethics. We searched for articles that contained: “ethics of research,” “research ethics,” “IRB,” “institutional review,” “ethics review,” “ethics procedure,” “ethics committee,” “ethics clearance,” “ethics board,” “human subjects review,” “human subjects committee,” “review board,” “consent,” “anonymous,” “confidential,” “deceit,” “deception,” and “debrief” (and elaborated in Section 1 of the Supplementary Material).Footnote 7 We trialed several versions of these search terms and their associated wildcards, including terms such as consent and anonymity, rather than only including references to institutional ethics (e.g., IRB).Footnote 8
We recoded Teele and Thelen’s (Reference Teele and Thelen2017) coding of article method to encompass quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods articles that use and analyze data.Footnote 9 We also code for, and include, conceptual/review articles that reflect on authors’ prior empirical work or discuss methods.Footnote 10 We excluded articles coded by Teele and Thelen (Reference Teele and Thelen2017) as “political theory” or “formal theory” because we are interested in articles that are empirical and, hence, could be expected to report or discuss research ethics.
In this ethics reporting versus non-reporting dataset, there are 5,629 articles published in nine journals (2000–18). The overwhelming majority (5,392, 95.8%) did not report ethics compared to 237 articles (4.2%) that did (Figure 1). As a percentage, ethics reporting has increased since 2013 (Figure 2)—with few articles reporting ethics published before 2009—but the number of articles published has also increased.
Ethics Reporting versus Non-Reporting
Percentage of Articles Reporting Ethics over Time
To test H1 and H3, we use this dataset to examine differences in ethics reporting versus non-reporting by author gender and article method (quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, and conceptual/review). To infer author gender and update this dataset (2015–18), we used the genderizeR R-package that predicts gender based on first names (Wais Reference Wais2006).Footnote 11 We also acknowledge the challenges of measuring gender according to a binary classification of men/women, that excludes trans and non-binary scholars. At the same time, this analysis follows existing scholars’ coding and is a necessary first step in interrogating whether and how there are gender inequalities in ethics reporting.
First, we report descriptive statistics, namely counts of ethics reporting versus non-reporting by author gender and article method. Second, we use binomial logistic regression to analyze the relationship between independent variables (author gender and article method) and the dependent variable (reporting vs. non-reporting).Footnote 12 We explore two sets of models with a different configuration of gender as the independent variable:
-
1. numeric variable: percent women (models 1–3),
-
2. categorical gender variable: women-only (100% women), men-only (0%), and mixed-gender (1%–99% women; models 4–6).
Descriptive Comparison of Reporting versus Non-Reporting by Gender and Method
Remarkably few articles (4.2%) across our data report ethics (2000–18; Figure 1). This figure is low, for example, in relation not only to all articles published but specifically to articles that would be expected to report some aspect of ethics. Based on the analysis of this dataset, we estimate that 23% of articles use data and methods that directly engage with human participants and, therefore, should be reporting ethics (e.g., field experiment, survey, and interviews). We also estimate a further 23.2% of articles that, while not directly engaging with human participants, are using data for which ethical questions might arise, for example, archival, social media, or textual data (see Section 5 of the Supplementary Material). Based on these estimates, about 10% of articles that should be reporting research ethics are actually reporting it (2000–18). These findings indicate that, absent the mandate to report on research ethics in political science and IR publications, non-reporting will by and large be a default practice of all but a small minority.
Analyzing, from a gender perspective, the minority that do report on research ethics reveals multiple inequalities. Most articles published were authored by men-only (62.1%; Table 1), compared to women-only authors (16.3%) and mixed-gender coauthors (21.6%). However, a higher proportion of mixed-gender coauthors (6.1%) and women-only authors report on ethics (5.4%) than men-only authors (3.2%; Table 1).
Author Gender by Article in the Ethics Reporting versus Non-Reporting Dataset
Most articles in the reporting versus non-reporting dataset are quantitative (76.8%), followed by qualitative (15.3%), conceptual/review (5.5%), and mixed-methods (2.4%; Table 2).Footnote 13 By methods, more mixed-methods articles report ethics (16.1%; Table 2), than others (quantitative: 4.3%; conceptual/review: 4.2%; qualitative articles reporting ethics: 1.7%).
Article Method in the Ethics Reporting versus Non-Reporting Dataset
Intersecting gender and methods (Figure 3), these trends are amplified. Mixed-gender coauthors and women dominate reporting in quantitative (6.1% and 5.2%, respectively, vs. men: 3.5%) and qualitative articles (3.4% and 3.4%, respectively, vs. men: 0.6%). Meanwhile, women dominate reporting in conceptual/review (8.8%, mixed-gender: 4.9%, men: 2.9%) and mixed-method articles (18.9%, mixed-gender: 18.2%, men: 14.1%).
Reporting of Ethics by Author Gender and Method
These unequal trends, which point to women doing the ethics reporting “work” that we observe descriptively, stand to be tested statistically.
Statistical Comparison of Reporting versus Non-Reporting by Gender and Method
To test H1 and H3, we need to determine if these differences in reporting by gender and method are statistically significant. We use binomial logistic regression to analyze the relationship between independent variables (author gender and article method) and the dichotomous dependent variable: reporting versus non-reporting of ethics in political science and IR journals. We use the year of publication and the number of authors as control variables.Footnote 14
The full results of the regression analysis are available in Table 3 and contain models both for percent women (models 1–3) and the categorical gender variable (models 4–6). We include models with only methods variables and controls (journal year, author number, and models 2 and 5), and only gender variables and controls (models 3 and 6; Table 3). We use quantitative articles as the baseline for comparison with other methods (conceptual/review, mixed-methods, and qualitative), and men-only authors as the baseline for the categorical gender comparison (with mixed-gender and women-only authors).
Binomial Regression of Reporting versus Non-Reporting of Research Ethics
Note: Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals in brackets; dependent variable is reporting versus non-reporting of ethics; baseline for models 4–6 is men-only (for gender); baseline for models 1, 2, 4, and 5 is quantitative (for method); the number of observations is 5,629 for all models; models 1 and 4 are the basis for Figure 4. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.
We include two gender variables partly for ease of interpretation and usefulness. In model 1, controlling for all other variables, the odds of reporting ethics are multiplied by a factor of 1.006 for every percent increase in women in a coauthoring team (
$ p<0.01 $
)—that is, they are 0.6% higher. As it is not that useful, practically, to talk in terms of increasing the percent of women, we include a categorical gender variable for gender (replicating the coding used in the extant literature). For women-only authors, the odds of reporting ethics are multiplied by a factor of 1.718 (model 4,
$ p<0.01 $
), compared to men-only authors controlling for all other variables—that is, they are 71.8% higher. For mixed-gender coauthors (1%–99% women), the odds of reporting ethics are multiplied by a factor of 1.504 (
$ p<0.05 $
), compared to men-only authors controlling for all other variables—that is, they are 50.4% higher. These results point to the gendered-nature of ethics reporting, with women leading the practice.
Focusing further on models 1 and 4, both models also indicate a significant relationship between specific methods and ethics reporting (Figure 4). Namely, for mixed-methods articles, the odds of reporting ethics are 3.348 (model 1,
$ p<0.001 $
) and 3.373 (model 4,
$ p<0.001) $
times the odds for quantitative articles controlling for all other variables—that is, they are 234.8% and 237.3% higher. The odds of ethics reporting in qualitative and conceptual/review articles are not significantly higher or lower compared to the odds for quantitative articles.
The control variables also demonstrate the importance of other mediating factors. In models 1 and 4, increasing the publication year by one year, the odds of reporting ethics are multiplied by a factor of 1.201 (
$ p<0.001 $
) controlling for all other variables—that is, they are 20.1% higher. This finding supports our descriptive account of an ethics turn in political science and IR (Figure 2). The number of authors matters, too. Every additional author multiplies the odds of ethics reporting by 1.181 in model 1 (
$ p<0.01 $
) controlling for all other variables—that is, increases them by 18.1%; however, this effect is not significant in model 4. It might be, for example, that projects with more coauthors are more methodologically and ethically complex or that projects with more coauthors might include members that drive reporting of ethics.
Overall, we find evidence to support H1: that ethics reporting does increase among women authors compared to men, including but weaker in mixed-gender coauthoring teams, controlling for journal year, author number, and research method. The latter being prominent in evidence of support for H3: ethics reporting is not only an issue of gender but intersects also with method.
REPORTING OF RESEARCH ETHICS
This section discusses the process of identifying and coding the relevant articles to construct a reporting of research ethics dataset. We use this dataset to interrogate how women and men report ethics (H2 and H3).
Data and Methods
To identify relevant articles reporting research ethics, we used the same search terms as in the reporting versus non-reporting dataset.Footnote 15 We expanded our search to 26 prominent political science and IR journals, broadly defined, in the same period (2000-18) and identified 709 articles published in them that report research ethics. We followed previous scholars’ selection of journals (e.g., Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017).Footnote 16 We then added other prominent political science and IR journals which also have a broader interdisciplinary reach for authors and readers.Footnote 17
In determining who is reporting and how ethics is reported in journal articles, and testing the hypotheses related to gender-based inequalities (H1–H3), as in the previous dataset, our focus is on empirical (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods) and conceptual/review articles. We scrutinize published articles as they serve a professional and pedagogical function in setting standards and providing an opportunity for learning, for example, from others’ ethical dilemmas and challenges, as well as demonstrating the ethical integrity of research to wider society. Preregistration plans are likely another source for ethical reporting but have a smaller readership.
Coding Research Ethics
We coded each article as the unit of analysis according to our coding framework. We developed iterations of the coding framework before finalizing it following trials on a subset of the corpus. The codes pertaining to articles’ characteristics follow practices in existing scholarship that identify different gendered patterns in political science and IR (Barnes Reference Barnes2018; Reid and Curry Reference Reid and Curry2019; Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017). These characteristics are:
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- Author: Number of authors, author gender [% women, following Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017], first-author’s institution;
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- Region of first-author’s institution: East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East, and North Africa, North America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa;
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- Journal (see Footnote 17);
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- Field research: conducted [yes/no], region [East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa];
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- Methods: qualitative (e.g., interviews and ethnography), quantitative (e.g., experiments and surveys analyzed using statistical methods), mixed-methods (e.g., a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data and methods), and conceptual/review (e.g., methodological reflections, not empirical articles);
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- Author rank: first author [assistant professor, associate professor, professor, PhD student, student (not PhD), post-doc, research fellow, administrator, independent, unknown], top-three authors [same codes].Footnote 18
Given the smaller number of observations, and unlike the reporting versus non-reporting dataset, we hand-coded gender by checking names but, more importantly, checking personal and institutional web-pages for pronouns.Footnote 19 Like in the reporting versus non-reporting dataset, in this reporting dataset, we transform percent of women authors into a categorical gender variable: women-only (100% women), mixed-gender (1-99% women), and men-only (0% women).
Scholarly discussions of ethics inform the codes for the dimensions of ethics (cf. Krippendorff Reference Krippendorff2004; Neuendorf Reference Neuendorf2017). For example, we followed the Belmont Report (1978), APSA’s (2020) Principles and Guidelines on Human Subjects Research, and additional literature discussed below:Footnote 20
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- Formal: procedures of formal or institutional ethics (Guillemin and Gillam Reference Guillemin and Gillam2004), for example, that research had undergone IRB protocols. [yes/no]
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- Everyday: reporting of ethics in daily research practice (Guillemin and Gillam Reference Guillemin and Gillam2004), for example, reporting on the practice of ethics or ethical sensibility, or the emergence of ethical challenges in the field, such as when engaging with participants. [yes/no]
-
- Risks, in relation to four loci: participants, researcher, assistants and gatekeepers, society; following the discussion of the importance of understanding, addressing, and minimizing risk when considering ethics (Wood Reference Wood2006) and need to understand risks beyond only those that pertain to participants (Cronin-Furman and Lake Reference Cronin-Furman and Lake2018; Loyle and Simoni Reference Loyle and Simoni2017; Rudloff and Vinson Reference Rudloff and Vinson2023). [yes/no]
-
- Benefits, to: participants, researcher, assistants and gatekeepers, society; to match loci of risks and scholarship on how minimizing risks should be accompanied by maximizing benefits, especially for participants and society (McDermott and Hatemi Reference McDermott and Hatemi2020). [yes/no]
-
- Consent protocol: reporting of process or protocols of gaining informed consent, for example, any mention of gaining or practicing informed consent and voluntary participation, following the discussion of the importance of consent within ethics debates (Campbell Reference Campbell2017) and to broaden consideration of ethics toward rights and not only cost/benefit analysis (Fujii Reference Fujii2017). [yes/no]
-
- Confidentiality and anonymity: reflect the foundational tenets of research ethics, and capture any reporting of privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity standards or protocols (Cronin-Furman and Lake Reference Cronin-Furman and Lake2018; Shesterinina Reference Shesterinina2019), for example, any mention. [yes/no]
-
- Location of ethics reporting: article body, footnote, and appendix/supplementary materials.
Our coding framework is broad to capture the diversity of how ethics might be reported across a range of methods as well as institutional and research contexts. While formal ethics procedures are more common in some institutional contexts than others, all researchers have the opportunity, where relevant, to discuss ethical challenges that might arise in the context of research (e.g., “everyday ethics”).Footnote 21
The reporting of research ethics dataset is reasonably large (
$ n=709 $
). However, when broken down by dimensions of ethics, gender, and method, the number of observations per cell is too small for regression analysis. Hence, we combine descriptive analysis of counts and proportions with chi-squared statistics when analyzing dimensions of ethics by different author and article attributes. Put together, we are able to identify empirically the gendered nature of reporting of research ethics, where men and women authors report on different aspects of research ethics (H2), and its relationship with methods (H3), as well as with other aspects like author region and seniority.
Findings: Research Ethics Reporting
We observe an ethics turn in the profession that aligns with its adoption of an ethics of care, with 51.5% of articles reporting ethics published from 2015–18 (Figure 5). Without an established or consistent practice (yet) of reporting ethics, demonstrated by the few articles reporting on ethics (especially prior to 2015), those articles that do report ethics are themselves establishing this practice. As such, they are implicated in knowledge production, particularly in conceiving “good care” in the subfield of research ethics as it pertains to political science and IR.
The Reporting of Ethics Dataset over Time
Reporting of ethics has taken place in specific journals, such as PS (17.2%), JoP (11.8%), and JPART (8.5%)—together 37.5% of articles—compared to other prominent journals in the field.Footnote 22 Ethics reporting also takes place in different locations of articles. For example, most articles reported ethics in the body of the article (54.6%), or in footnotes (31.9%), with fewer reporting in the acknowledgments (16.1%), or in an appendix (6.3%).Footnote 23 But an important caveat to the ethics turn is the current varied extent of ethics reporting. For example, in most articles, we observed only a short statement about research ethics. Most authors reported either the procedure of formal ethics review (e.g., referencing the permission of the institutional body conducting the research ethics review) and/or procedures of confidentiality and anonymity (e.g., a single sentence); far fewer articles expanded on the specifics of ethical concerns within the context of their research.
By gender, most articles were authored by men-only (44.4%), followed by women-only (27.9%) and mixed-gender authors (27.6%; Table 4). We might expect such a dominance of men given that men dominate publishing of articles overall, as demonstrated by the reporting versus non-reporting dataset. We now examine how this gender composition breaks down by method and the region of a first author’s institution.
Author Gender in the Reporting of Ethics Dataset
Most articles that report ethics are either quantitative (56.3%) or qualitative (20.9%), with fewer articles being mixed-methods (9.4%). More articles reporting ethics written by women are qualitative (35.4%) whereas for men and mixed-gender authors most articles are quantitative (64.4% and 69.9%, respectively; Figure 6). We cannot infer whether these findings reflect trends within reporting of ethics, dominant approaches within political science, or publishing biases within journals that favor statistical over qualitative and mixed-methods work.
Articles Reporting Ethics by Methods of Analysis and by Gender
Most first authors in articles reporting ethics are based in North America (71.5%) or Europe/Central Asia (22.3%), compared to other regions. Here, there are not large differences by author gender (Figure 7). Although the practice of reporting ethics is still emerging, more robust institutional procedures of ethics, for example, in North America (e.g., IRB), might spill over into the practice of reporting (in the journals that we analyze). Alternatively, this effect may result from publishing biases within the journals we select that favor North American-based (or trained) authors. Regardless of the mechanism, it appears to affect men and women equally.
Articles Reporting Ethics by Author Gender and First-Author’s Region of Institution
Note: There were no first authors from Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia.
Finally, in terms of seniority of those who report ethics, first authors are most commonly those in tenure-track (assistant professors: 33.9%), or tenured positions (professors: 24.0%; associate professors: 19.7%), with only a minority who are PhD students (9.9%) or post-docs (5.5%; Supplementary Figure S4).Footnote 24 By gender, in terms of first-author rank, we observe a similar pattern where assistant professors are the largest category for women-only (41.4%) and men-only articles (33.7%), but many articles are also first-authored by men professors (25.1%). For mixed-gender coauthoring teams, first authors are more evenly split across the three categories (Figure S5 in the Supplementary Material). By region, most assistant professors (80.4%), associate professors (71.4%), professors (71.2%), PhD students (77.1%), and other students (e.g., BA/MA) are based in North America, which also speaks to the North American dominance of ethics reporting (Figure S7 in the Supplementary Material). Without access to wider data on publishing across ranks (which to the best of our knowledge does not exist), we can only infer that these trends may reflect broader publishing patterns and gendered-patterns across academic positions. We could infer, for example, that with most articles that report ethics being authored by pre-tenured academics, that is, assistant professors, there may be a trend toward greater training or socialization in research ethics in North America,Footnote 25 which further highlights the pedagogical function of ethics reporting.
From this descriptive analysis, we can build on the findings from the previous dataset which suggest that women and mixed-gender coauthors are reporting ethics more than men, once accounting for the number of articles published (H1). We can also begin to see other author attributes that intersect with gender (H3), such as method and seniority, as well as attributes that do not amplify gender differences, such as the region of authors’ institutions.
Dimensions of Ethics by Gender
We now turn to how dimensions of ethics are reported, to capture the epistemic aspect of the emerging practice of ethics of care in the profession. We investigate whether women and men report on different dimensions, and, if so, how (H2). Following our codebook, we examine several dimensions of ethics reporting: formal reporting of ethics, everyday ethics, confidentiality and anonymity, consent, risks, and benefits.Footnote 26
By gender, we find significant differences in reporting confidentiality and anonymity, everyday ethics, risks, and benefits, with women reporting more than men-only and mixed-gender coauthoring teams (Figure 8 and Table 5). For example, 65.2% of women-only authors report confidentiality and anonymity (Figure 8), compared to 54% of men-only and 53.6% of mixed-gender coauthor teams (
$ {\chi}^2 $
(
$ df=2 $
,
$ N=709 $
) = 7.488,
$ p=0.024 $
), and 28.8% of women report risks of research compared to 19% of men-only and 16.8% mixed-gender coauthor teams (
$ {\chi}^2 $
(
$ df=2,N=709 $
] = 9.945,
$ p=0.007 $
; Table 5). Although we see men slightly more reporting formal ethics than other groups (men-only: 56.8%; mixed: 52%; women-only: 51.5%), this difference is not significant. Differences by gender in reporting consent are also not significant.
Chi-Squared Tests for Differences in Proportions by Gender and Method
Note: For tests on method, conceptual/review were removed to avoid overdetermining results by nonempirical papers. Everyday ethics and benefits are not reported for methods because of too few observations.
Reporting of Ethics by Dimension and Author Gender
Despite the small number of articles being compared here, especially when broken down by gender, this analysis has shown via granular coding of ethics reporting that the dimensions of ethics that are reported relate to gender in meaningful ways. Women give more attention to reporting confidentiality and anonymity, everyday ethics, risks, and benefits versus men-only and mixed-gender coauthoring teams (H2, though not where women coauthor in mixed-gender teams). Moreover, there are no dimensions of ethics that men-only and mixed-gender coauthors are reporting more than women.
Dimensions of Ethics and Method
To return to H3, we now analyze if and how reporting of ethics relates to method (we exclude conceptual/review papers from our analysis here and from χ2 tests to avoid nonempirical papers overdetermining the results).
We find significant differences in reporting formal ethics, consent, and confidentiality and anonymity by method (Figure 9 and Table 5). In reporting formal ethics, quantitative articles report far more (65.9%) than other methods (21.6%–26.9%;
$ {\chi}^2 $
(
$ df=2,N=614 $
] = 102.25, p<0.001). Consent is also more likely reported by quantitative articles (29.1%; Figure 9) compared to mixed-methods (19.4%) and qualitative (17.6%,
$ {\chi}^2 $
(
$ df=2,N=614 $
] = 8.932,
$ p=0.011 $
; Table 5). However, qualitative (88.5%) and mixed-methods (85.1%) are more likely to report confidentiality and anonymity than quantitative articles (43.6%;
$ {\chi}^2 $
(
$ df=2,N=614 $
] = 111.16, p<0.001). By contrast, differences of reporting of risks by method are not significant.
Reporting of Ethics by Dimension of Research Ethics and Article Methodology
We also see differences in which dimensions are significant for gender but not for method, and vice versa. For example, formal ethics and consent are not significantly different by gender but are by method (Table 5).
We, therefore, find further evidence for H3: that how ethics is reported is not only explained by gender but also by method. These differences are notable since formal ethics, consent, and confidentiality ought to be similarly important regardless of method used. But, as we find, such similar ethical concerns do not make equally their way into the reporting of ethics in political science and IR.
Intersecting Methods and Gender Vis-à-Vis Ethics Reporting
Finally, testing H3 further, we investigate how the reporting dimensions of ethics takes place at the intersection of gender and methods (Figures S8 and S9 in the Supplementary Material), given the intersectional nature in how the ethics of care is practiced (Hankivsky Reference Hankivsky2014; Tronto Reference Tronto2010). We focus on those dimensions of research ethics where we observed the greatest gender-based differences in reporting: formal ethics, confidentiality and anonymity, and consent.
Here, we see differences amplified even further. For example, in reporting formal ethics, we see women proportionally reporting more in quantitative (76.3%) articles than men (65%) and mixed-gender coauthor teams (62.8%; Figure S8a in the Supplementary Material). Conversely, in mixed-methods articles, we see men reporting more (40.9%) than women (18.5%) and mixed-gender teams (22.2%).
In contrast with formal ethics, for confidentiality and anonymity, and consent, we generally see men-only and mixed-gender coauthors reporting more than women (Figure S8b,c in the Supplementary Material). In quantitative articles, men report confidentiality (47.3%) more than mixed-gender coauthors (40.9%) and women (37.3%). Similarly, in qualitative and mixed-method articles, men (90% and 86.4%, respectively) and mixed-gender coauthors (89.3% and 83.3%, respectively) report confidentiality slightly more than women (87.1% and 85.2%, respectively). This picture is repeated for reporting consent in quantitative articles, while mixed-gender teams (25%) and women (17.1%) report consent more than men (14%) in qualitative articles. The only exception is the few conceptual/review articles where mixed-gender coauthors (69.2%) and women (54.8%) report confidentiality/anonymity more compared to men (25%), and for consent where women report more (45.2%) than mixed-gender coauthors (38.5%) and men (35%).
These findings demonstrate the importance of investigating the reporting of ethics at the intersection of gender and method. For example, we reveal a more nuanced pattern of women reporting on some dimensions of ethics (formal ethics) in quantitative articles, whereas men and mixed-gender coauthors report on other dimensions of ethics in quantitative and qualitative articles (consent and confidentiality). Conversely, in conceptual/review articles, women dominate reporting of most dimensions of ethics (H2 and H3).
Summarizing the findings of this article, we found evidence to support H1: that women authors are more likely to report ethics than men (p<0.01), controlling for method, author number, and year of publication; this effect remained but is weaker in mixed-gender coauthoring teams (p<0.05). We also found evidence to support H2: that men and women report on different dimensions of ethics. However, we also found evidence to support H3: where within-gender differences are also mediated by method.
Overall, this article empirically evaluated the emerging practice of reporting research ethics in political science and IR before the start of the codification of guidelines on reporting research ethics (e.g., APSA 2020). We found that few articles reported ethics, and fewer than we would expect, even if this has been expanding. Moreover, where ethics reporting has occurred, it has been minimal (e.g., a short statement/1–2 sentences). We also identified consequential gendered patterns concerning if and how ethics has been reported (H1 and H2), although we also observed variation among women, mixed-gender coauthors, and men depending on the methods used (H3). These unequal trends by gender and method point to inconsistencies as to whether and how ethics is reported, and the inscription of gender-based differences in the profession. Efforts to move forward in adopting universal standards must build bridges across a diversity of practices by method, as well as by journal/publisher, professional body, institutions, and national contexts.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
We investigated whether and how the emerging practice of reporting research ethics is gendered from the perspective of institutionalizing the ethics of care in political science and IR. The findings reveal that gender-based inequalities have been inscribed in the emerging practice both in terms of who reports and how scholars report on research ethics, especially when considering research methods. Absent a universal norm of reporting on research ethics in political science and IR publications, we observe the practice of “gendered care” in the profession (Bubeck Reference Bubeck1995). We find that reporting of research ethics as a form of care has been “disproportionately the work” of women, as in other practices of care (Tronto Reference Tronto2010, 166). At the same time, men and women provide different signals of what constitutes “care” in research, contributing to a gendered constitution of knowledge about research ethics. These differences are prominent at the intersection of gender and method, although other intersections stand to be examined by further research.
Contrary to other gendered patterns in political science and IR where different forms of women’s marginalization contribute to what Youngs (Reference Youngs2004, 75) calls “malestream,” we find that the reporting of research ethics is dominated by women scholars. They lead the way in ethics reporting as more active participants than men in demonstrating and constructing conventions of ethical research in political science and IR, and, arguably, in the constitution of a “moral research community” (Comstock Reference Comstock2012, 17). The overrepresentation of women in this practice of care in the profession has potentially adverse implications. We noted existing patterns of epistemic marginalization of women and their knowledge in the profession (Dion and Mitchell Reference Dion and Mitchell2019; Key and Sumner Reference Key and Sumner2019; Teele and Thelen Reference Teele and Thelen2017). Women’s disproportionate participation in ethics reporting and discussions about research ethics may have a similar effect, because the same prosocial behavior elicits different evaluative reactions by gender. Women are assessed less favorably than men, with a negative impact on women’s professional advancement and recognition (Bolino and Grant Reference Bolino and Grant2016; Heilman and Chen Reference Heilman and Chen2005). Hence, a potential risk is that both the actual practice and the knowledge of research ethics are evaluated as less relevant, and, even, resisted, because of women’s domination in shaping research ethics. A hidden cost to women’s careers also ought to be considered: dedicating more time to thinking and writing about ethics may affect their productivity and guide their decisions against pursuing some research topics that dominate leading journals and slow their career progression.Footnote 27
A disconnect between the takeoff of ethics discussions in political science and IR and the take-up of practices of reporting on the ethics of research demonstrates that—without standardized guidance to report on research ethics and to report meaningfully in academic publications—the gender-based inequalities that we have observed are likely to be entrenched further. The status quo is one with largely voluntary and minimalist reporting, patchy codification of inconsistent standards, and their uneven application. How could these problems be accounted for and addressed so that the practice of ethics reporting becomes less gendered? We call for more consistent guidance and standards for reporting research ethics, across journals, professional bodies, and national contexts, notwithstanding the diversity of research in political science and IR by sub-field, region, or method. Yet there are some fairly quick and easy fixes. For example, agreeing on where in a publication ethics should be reported: in the text of an article, a footnote, an appendix, or in an ethics statement (akin to the acknowledgments) would be a start. An agreed standard would remove ambiguities in the current practice. For example, scholars are concerned about the consequences in terms of word count or reviewers’ response to disclosing ethical challenges, which likely impacts their decision to report or not report ethics. Considering the pedagogical role of reporting ethics within the research community and the importance of ensuring legitimacy within wider society, we also call for raising standards so that reporting is not reduced to a tick-box exercise. Reporting should model best practices by addressing a range of ethical dilemmas and challenges, for example, how risks to participants, researchers, and others were considered and mitigated. Such transparency is consequential both for how knowledge is constructed in political science and IR and in the subfield of research ethics itself.
Journals and professional bodies can lead from above in setting consistent, comprehensive, and actionable guidance and thus contribute to reducing disparities in practices and standards between institutions and regions. In this respect, APSA’s role in delivering on its commitment to research ethics in political science has stood out as a global norm setter. APSA’s (2020) Principles and Guidelines for Human Subjects Research provided a comprehensive set of perspectives on ethical research considering the plural nature of discipline in view of different research methods and research settings. The document, which was subsequently included as an integral part of APSA’s (2022) Guide to Professional Ethics,Footnote 28 framed the responsibility for the promotion of ethical research as being shared by an entire community including educators, editors, and reviewers as well as with researchers (Principle 12). The document also insists that responsibility for ensuring ethical research with human participants in a particular research project rests with the author and cannot be delegated to others, for example, research assistants or the IRB (Principles 2 and 11b). This guidance has had a direct bearing on reporting of research ethics, having spelled out that “[j]ournals, departments, and associations should incorporate ethical commitments into their mission, bylaws, instructions, practices and procedures” (APSA 2020). For example, APSA’s journals have implemented or will implement the guidance in their submissions instructions, mandating the reporting on research ethics. But, beyond APSA’s journals, without a standardized form of reporting, the substance and extent of information is largely left to the author’s interpretation, just as reporting at all is left to the discretion of the author(s). APSA’s detailed codification of the different facets of professional ethics brings into a sharp relief the lack of comprehensive and actionable research ethics guidelines internationally. National professional organizations and journals outside North America pay only scant attention to research ethics,Footnote 29 mostly restricting ethics to the questions of professional conduct (e.g., nondiscrimination) and publishing ethics.Footnote 30
By and large, voluntarism in ethics reporting in political science and IR is currently the global norm. Consequently, the modeling of best practice internationally remains both arbitrary, unspecified and limited. This practice is set to perpetuate gender-based differences, such as those we have observed, unless it is addressed. However, any raising of standards could lead to further exclusions of both men and women in the global south. Our empirically grounded consideration of current practice is not only that women are dominating reporting of ethics, but such women are based at North American and European institutions. Instead, institutions in the global north could lead efforts to redress such existing inequalities. Ultimately, the institutionalization of ethics of care in the profession will remove a dilemma from scholars about whether or not to report on research ethics, or how to report them, in their publications. The existence of this dilemma has bred gender-based inequalities. It requires a considered response so that redress of “old” does not introduce “new” disparities in the practice of research ethics reporting.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055424000546.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Anonymized data and replication code that support the findings of this study are openly available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AIQOZL.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful for the research assistance of Patricia Alonso and Chiara Brogi and comments from APSR’s editors and five anonymous reviewers. The authors are also grateful to Dawn Langan Teele and Kathleen Thelen for sharing their data and to Lanabi La Lova for feedback.
FUNDING STATEMENT
This research was funded by the European Institute, LSE, and Department of Methodology, LSE.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no ethical issues or conflicts of interest in this research.
ETHICAL STANDARDS
The authors affirm this research did not involve human participants.
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